GM's Tiny Self-Driving Smartcar Could Put Taxis Out Of Business

Oct 08, 2013 13:07

Check out the GM EN-V Concept car which was recently spotted at the CityLab event held in Battery Park City. EN-V is short for "Electric Networked Vehicles," and is GM's vision of a zero-emission, autonomous, wirelessly connected "car" of tomorrow.

So why electric pod cars? As GM vice president Stephen J. Girsky
explains, the city of the future is going to be "crowded, dirty, and
resource-constrained." The compact designs of these pods will reduce
the need of parking spaces. These vehicles will help to reduce the
number of
personal cars on the roads. Just call one over to your house to pick
you up when when you need it. Once it calculates your route, it asks
you if you'd mind picking up another passenger along the way.

The car drives using front-mounted ultrasonic and vision systems.
There's a roof-mounted GPS and wireless antenna to help avoid collisions
and reduce the number of accidents and improve traffic flow in general. For more info on this concept car design, click here

Personally, I prefer winter over summer. I’m much better at handling the cold than I am at handling the heat. But let’s face it: the same doesn’t really go for a lot of people, and it certainly doesn’t go for most machinery. Cars, for example, are much better at handling those summer months than they are the icy winter ones. Read more